A Thai court has found Andy Hall, a prominent migrant rights defender based in Thailand, guilty of defamation in a closely watched case that will likely have a wide-reaching impact on efforts to monitor mistreatment of foreign workers in the Kingdom.

Hall, who was sentenced to four years in prison and a 150,000 baht (US$4,300) fine, faced up to seven years in jail for accusing Natural Fruit Co Ltd, Thailand’s biggest producer of canned pineapples, of abusing the rights of migrant workers from Burma.

According to Finnwatch, a Finland-based rights group that produced a report on the company’s practices that included information provided by Hall, the prison sentence has been suspended for two years. The group also said that Hall would appeal the verdict.

Natural Fruit denies the allegations made in the Finnwatch report, “Cheap Has a High Price”. The company filed two criminal and two civil lawsuits against Hall but did not sue Finnwatch.

”We are shocked by today’s verdict. The report was authored and published by Finnwatch; we take full responsibility for it. Andy has been made a scapegoat in order to stifle other voices that speak out legitimately in support of migrant worker rights,” said Sonja Vartiala, executive director of Finnwatch.

”This is a sad day for freedom of expression in Thailand. We fear that many other human rights defenders and victims of company abuse will be scared to silence by this ruling,” added Vartiala.

“The cases are widely considered an example of judicial harassment by companies and governments and an attempt to silence a human rights defender,” Finnwatch said in a statement released before the verdict.

US-based Human Rights Watch called for Thailand’s criminal defamation laws to be abolished.

“Andy Hall coordinated important research about abuses of workers’ rights in Thailand and he should never have been prosecuted for his actions,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in the statement.

Adams said the court fight has had a “chilling effect” on other activists pressing for workers’ rights in Thailand.